The Best Sex Comes in Chapters … And I Don’t Mean Romance Novels

One of the most ongoing challenges couples face in maintaining a healthy sex life is looking forward to sex and getting in the mood. Perhaps lovemaking just doesn’t seem as novel as it once did. Perhaps it’s hard to disengage minds from the cares of the day and focus on something entirely different. Perhaps, though they know sex can be rewarding, the journey from foreplay to orgasm feels more daunting than appealing. The irony is that in our moments of highest sexual sensation, we often think, “This is amazing! What don’t we do this more often?”

Compare lovemaking to reading a novel. What if every night when you sit down to read, rather than picking up where you left off, you were to start a new book? Imagine how unsatisfied you might feel. Does this remind you at all of your sex life? Now what if sex could be more like jumping back into a novel, where the setting, characters, and purpose are already established, and you feel a vested interest (if not a burning desire) to discover more. Behold the power of sexual role-plays. But rather than thinking in terms of a simple nurse and patient or cop and robber, think in terms of an ongoing story.

For example, for this last Valentines Day, I outlined a story in which my wife finds herself as the only girl in an all-boys boarding school. The erotic possibilities seemed endless. In the story, the headmaster is against having her there, but the school board requires it. If my wife doesn’t perform well, she’ll be cast out onto the streets from which she came. Her only hope is to to use her sexual powers for survival. Ultimately, her quest is to seduce the headmaster in order to soften his heart. Then I made a list of each of the role-plays I wanted to act out:

1. First she has to befriend a nerdy boy who sits beside her in class. She learns that the boy’s father is on the school board and has a lot of influence over the headmaster. To get what she wants, she must meet up with the boy in a broom closet for a make out session. The boy promises to tell his father about her.
2. Unfortunately, a bully oversees what happens in the closet and threatens to tell the headmaster on her. She must also offer this bully some sexual favors in order to keep him silent.
3. After school, the nerdy boy introduces his father. She must flirt with him. The father invites her over for dinner. At the dinner, she must seduce the father and bring him into a back room for some more fun. He promises to put in a good word for her with the headmaster.
4. The next day in class, the headmaster reminds the students that anyone caught engaging in sexual activity will be severely punished. At gym class, all of the boys are rude to her, refusing to pass her the ball. She has to wait for them all to exit the locker room before it’s her turn to shower. She must cleverly prop the door open as she showers, a subtle invitation to the boys to come back in and watch her. She must seduce the meanest of the boys into some steamy shower sex. The mesmerized boys soften toward her and invite her to a party going on that evening.
5. Meanwhile the headmaster calls her into her office. He informs her that he’s heard a lot of good things about her, adding, “I still have mixed feelings, but perhaps we can work together. I’ve heard that the boys are planning a secret party this evening, which is against the rules. Because I know the boys will listen to you, I want you to go and encourage them to break things up. I’ll be showing up later in the evening to make sure you get the job done. If it helps, remind the boys that anyone caught violating the rules will be brought into my office for a personal paddling.” He coldly resists any of her advances.
6. That evening, she attends the party, where she must not only fail to break things up but becomes the life of the party as she performs a raucous striptease. The headmaster shows up only to see her dancing naked.
7. With no further adieu, the headmaster drags her into his office and asks her to take off her pants for an old-fashioned paddling. She does so with pleasure, and with each spanking, she moans with bliss, begging the headmaster to hit her harder. In this manner, she must seduce him.

Of course, this was just my outline. The actual game took many departures … for the better. While originally I intended for this all to play out in one night, limiting each encounter to foreplay and reserving intercourse for the scene with the headmaster, during the first scene with the nerdy boy, both of us got so into our roles that we couldn’t stop ourselves. Every subsequent scene (played on different nights) turned out the same way. I found that during the many nights this game continued, my wife looked forward to sex much more than on other nights. Even when I had to stay up late to finish some work and sex got pushed back until midnight (long past our usual narrow window of successful lovemaking before tiredness takes over), she patiently waited up for me; she was that eager to continue the game.

One night she said, “Sometimes I’m ashamed at how much these games turn me on. I have to tell myself, ‘It’s okay. You’re only making love to your husband. You’re not dirty.'” Perhaps it’s this very sensation of breaking social rules and playing out otherwise impossible scenarios (while maintaining the benefits of a clean conscience) that’s so exciting. Just as putting on blindfolds intensifies sensation by adding the power of the imagination, there’s something magical and instantly binding about adding a sense of story and suspense to our lovemaking. It requires us to open up and connect in new ways. Of course, some nights I prefer to just get to the action without having to exert my brain in any shape, way, or form. For all the other nights, our best sex, by far, is found by returning to our personal world of sexual fantasies, a never-ending story and ongoing adventure of love, passion, and naughty, naughty people, whom we would never dream of acting like in real life. And just as a good novel always leaves you on a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter, the best sex will leave you in anticipation for next time. Don’t try to reinvent the sexual wheel, night after night.

Now go and write your own outline. If it’s successful (and remember that your spouse is much more forgiving than most audiences), the episodes may just last a few seasons … or for the rest of your lives. Wouldn’t it be fun to be playing the same characters, with decades of sexual adventures behind you, when you’re in your eighties? Just think about all the stories you’ll have, the decades of oohs and ahs and always wanting more.